CNN’s Borger: Benghazi Talking Points ‘Were Edited to the Point of Inaccuracy’

Borger: Safe to say this goes beyond partisan picking

CNN’s Gloria Borger became the latest member of the mainstream media to acknowledge the Obama Administration’s Benghazi talking points were “edited to the point of inaccuracy” Friday afternoon:

GLORIA BORGER: What we see in this process is that these talking points were edited to the point of inaccuracy. The question is, is it a cover-up? Is it a whitewash? We don’t know the answer to that.

CHRIS CUOMO: I know. And you took my question. That’s exactly what I was going to ask you. Right? Because that’s what this gets to, 12. What’s the context? It sounds like a lot, but we have to know the nature and purpose of what those changes were.

GLORIA BORGER: So here’s the context. Over at the CIA they’re looking at some of these points, which include mention of Al Qaeda. And there’s a sense from some at the CIA, you know what, we don’t want to tip anybody that we’re investigating Al Qaeda on this, so let’s take out some of the references to Al Qaeda. What the CIA left in, apparently, was this sort of broader context of Al Qaeda in Benghazi in that part of the world. Those were eventually edited out. And there is an e-mail obtained by ABC news from someone at the State Department which asks, why should we leave that in because “it could be abused by members of Congress to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings.” So clearly from a State Department official asking the question, why are we going to give members of Congress information, don’t forget in an election year, which they could turn around and beat us up with. And that’s how you see in evolving. Everybody’s got a different reason for editing it. And they edit it down to something that’s totally, turns out to be in fact untrue.